Byakko Cafe'
by Ekoko
Summary: Mao runs and works at Byakko Cafe', her cousin Kiki just hangs out there, Rei's proclaimed it his 2nd home, and her brother Rai's about to move in! But what about Kiki's reoccuring dreams? What happens when, just like in those dreams, Rei is kidnapped?
1. Prologue: Glimpse of this Life

I've written the first chapter to a new fanfic! This is an **Alternate Universe** fanfic, taking place in. . . You'll see! It'll probably focus on mainly Mao, Rai, and Kiki. Possibly a few additions to that. . .

So, yeah, this'll probably have some plot-resembling stuff later, I've got some plans. . . Um. . . Yeah. . . 

I have a Chinese English Dictionary. I love telling people that, especially since I've been studying Japanese for seven years and I'm ahead of my class - but have **no** knowledge of so much as pronouncing the Chinese words!

There are multiple meanings, but I chose the ones I liked best.

If you have a word you wanna know, tell me in a review and I'll look it up and put it in here! I just _love_ looking up words! 

**Pineapple is fenglishu.**

I thought it was important. . .

. . : : NAMES : : . .

Mao ___ Kitten _(sharing the Japanese kanji for cat. Ironically, this was on last weeks kanji test.)_

Rei ____ tired, fatigued 

Rai ____ rely, depend on

Gaou ____ His name means assorted foods. Pastries, cakes, O_o _(Fitting, no?)_

Kiki _____ Honestly, my dictionary didn't have this. O_______O _(Not even Ki. and on the English to Chinese side I even tried looking up Monkey!)_

Kai ______ indignant [Or: Open! lol! Or: wipe _I tell you this because the sentence example was "To wipe away one's tears."_ Or: deeply touched. Or: suit of armour. Or: TRIUMPHANT!! ]

Shuilan _____ Aqua Marine. _(She's my OC for this...)_

. : : : . : : : : : : : . . . . . . . . . : : : : : . . . . . . . : : : : : : . . . . . . . . . . . . : : : : : : : : : . . . . . . . . . . .

**Byakko Cafe'**

_"Prologue _:_ ::: : . . . Glimpse of this life"_

"So, just a small plate of egg rolls?" Mao asked, looking over her notebook. The woman in front of her nodded and she smiled. "Coming right up. Shouldn't take long since it's a small order, but-" She sighed dramatically, "If you can't be convinced to order anything more . . . "

She turned to give the order to the chef but was stopped by a familiar voice calling our her name. "Mao!" She spun on her high-heeled heel and redirected herself to table #4's direction.

"Hey, Rei." She said, raising a hand in greeting. Rei smiled and nodded for her to sit down. "Can't, gotta go deliver this to the chef. Unless . . . " She paused. "Kiki!"

A sea-green haired boy crawled out from under the table at the call of his name, though whether he had gotten there from elsewhere or if he had been there the entire time was unknown. "I didn't break it! It was Shuilan this time!"

Mao raised an eyebrow. "Break what?"

"The vase."

"It's not broken, not since I checked last night."

Kiki was standing in front of the table by this point and looked around shiftily - though you could only see one eye, the other was covered by his hair. He shifted his weight from foot to foot before grinning as innocently as possible. "You're right, not broken. But if it just so happened to have broken early this morning, it was Shuilan's fault." 

Mao let out a drawn out and slightly disbelieving"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight . . . " Before handing him a small notebook. "Give this to the cook, would you Kiki?"

"Not without motivation, I wouldn't."

"If you don't I'll punish you whether your story of how it managed to be Shuilan's fault is convincing or not."

"That'll do. Hi Rei, bye Rei." Kiki gave a wave and hurried off towards the kitchen, leaving Mao and her friend. Mao sat down and grinned. 

"So, how are you, Rei?" She asked, propping her head on her hands. 

"Pretty good. Papa has un'-book-borrowing-grounded' me because I've been helping out with the bookshop so much extra. All I did was take a book they were holding for someone and forget to give it back until after the person came to pick it up! Yeesh!" Rei pouted. "So unfair. And you're doing good as well, I presume."

"Pretty good. Kiki's a pest, Gaou is . . . " She brightened. "Gaou is on a trip somewhere right now; With his parents."

"Wow, so you can actually leave the kitchen door unlocked." Rei said, amazed. Mao nodded, and Rei looked up in thought. "You mean... Just because Gaou's gone, you're leaving it open?" Mao nodded again, looking doubtful. 

"Yeah, why?"

"Kiki."

"Yeah, well, the cooks have basically figured out how to get him to go away. . . Give him some candy and he's gone, and it's no problem if they don't give him much." Mao shrugged.

A girl Kiki's age with aqua hair covering her eyes in a random way popped up from no where. "Actually, even just a little makes Kiki hyper and prone to breaking things." She flipped one of the thick strands of hair covering her ears back over her shoulder - though it went rather strangely because the rest of her hair past those two strands wasn't even to her shoulders, and said two strands were to her waist.

Mao shrugged. "That's why I let him play at your house, Shuilan." Shuilan just shrugged, and after a pause asked:

"Where's Kiki?"

Mao pointed to the kitchen and Shuilan put on a calculating look, moving her finger in the air as though tracing movement on an invisible map. She stopped and glanced around a bit before pointing. The reason for doing so was explained by the distressed exclamation of "He's probably all the way to table #13 by now!" 

". . . Sooooooo," Mao started, turning back to Rei once Shuilan had ran off. "What book had you taken again?" She tried to ignore that she didn't care, nor did she want one of the infamous "Rei responses" to a question about a book as she asked, but managed to prepare herself to stop paying attention on a subconscious level.

"I've forgotten the title. . . It was really cool though, it was about this princess, see, but she didn't like being a princess, so she ran away and became friends with a dragon, then, " Mao tuned herself out as Rei rambled about the book and various notes about it. 

She loved Rei, - as a friend - really she did, but sometimes he needed to ramble. The problem was, Mao had decided, Rei was able to uphold a one-sided conversation for hours, but he _did_ need someone else there. Unfortunately, no one Mao - or Rei- knew would be one to enjoy simply listening, they all liked talking as well.

Luckily though, Rei wasn't the type to ignore their conversation expectations.

"And she doesn't want to be rescued, so she puts up a sign specifically to tell princes not to rescue her," 

On purpose. . .

"Sounds entertaining. Maybe I'll read it sometime." _Maybe. _ Mao paused and stood up. "If you don't order soon, we won't have time to prepare your order before closing time." Which was a slight exaggeration, but still. . ."What do you want?"

Rei laughed, almost nervously. "Heh, sorry." He looked up and pondered what to get before looking back to Mao sharply. "You mean you haven't memorized my order yet?"

"I have, just double checking. Oh, and we're out of green tea, we were running low as it is, but Kiki's friend Shuilan got sick a while ago and Kiki insisted I gave it to her. But we have honey lemon and raspberry, new flavors."

"Shuilan got sick? And I want raspberry." 

Mao nodded and didn't bother writing it in _or_ confirming Shuilan's health disabilities before wandering off to the kitchen - on the way there, snatching a donut from Kiki's hands munching on that - ignoring by the yelling behind her. (Though amused by the beginning that she had heard.)

"That was _my_ donut!!" 

"Kiki, you liar! You stole it from me!"

And so went the average moment.

Mao returned from giving the order, or at least, _tried _to, anyway. She was interrupted by the following noise:

**_Crash!_**

Now, this is _not_ a noise, it is just a piece of writing, but it is an example of what the sound is assumed to look like, when turned into a word. There's a word for that process alone, but I've forgotten it. Now, by this point you have probably forgotten about the above "_**Crash!**_" and as such, I will remind you.

_**Crash!**_

Mao turned on her heel. "Kiki!!!" Kiki and Shuilan were standing next to each other in front of one of the open tables, trying to look innocent. Mao sighed. "What did you break?" The both immediately opened their mouths in protest and pointed at the other. 

Mao stood and waited, tapping her foot impatiently. A a glaring contest ensued, which was quite amusing because not _only_ did Kiki only have one eye showing, but Shuilan had _no_ eyes showing. Some how, one of them managed to win, apparently Shuilan.

Which only made the above eye-statement even more blunt and as such, more confusing. Anyway. . .

"Kiki broke one of the glasses on the table." Shuilan said, moving aside and pointing to said broken glass on said table. "I _told_ you. The sugar." Shuilan leaned forward and whispered, loud enough for Kiki to hear too. "It messes with him."

Mao sighed, yet again. Which - she reminded herself to punish him more as she realized it - happened a lot when Kiki was there. Or when Shuilan was there. And an especially large amount of sighing tended to happen when they were together. 

Sighing again, Mao pointed, giving cleaning instructions, and watched as the two idly wandered off to ignore her instructions on how to clean up what _they _broke. 

The end of the day came quickly once she had ushered Rei to his own home with a to-go box, Sent Shuilan home, and locked Kiki in the back room with a few snacks. Of course, Mao had known that he would pick the lock, but once she locked him in the first three times, he tended to stop being so annoying, and that had been the third of the day.

Mao turned over the 'open, closed' sign on the door and glanced down at Kiki who was squinting as though keeping his eyes open was terribly difficult. He let out a long yawn and stretched his arms. Before he could lower them, Mao grasped one of his hands in her own, motherly instinct taking over as she led him across the street and home.

Kiki, of course, protested to being babied as such, but only vocally, doing nothing to change it.

Mao opened the door for Kiki, grabbing the mail from a box on the way in the door. As she looked through them she spared a glance at Kiki, who was padding his way towards the couch in front of the TV.

"Bed, Kiki. Get some sleep." She ordered, then looked back to the mail. Her eyes lingered on the name of who it was from before she checked to make sure Kiki was going upstairs to his room. As he closed his bedroom door, Mao began heading up the stairs herself, bringing with her the letter. "About time Rai writes to me, stupid brother."

When Mao finally got to her room - having been walking very slow, trying to open the stupid letter - she decided the letter could wait, and her need of sleep could not, planning to read it over the next day. 

Before falling asleep she was idly aware of the fact that there was no work the next day. 

Well, that's all for chapter one! See you next time!


	2. Chapter One: Fast Learner

Okay, FINALLY an update. For details on why it took so long, see my rant at the bottom of the page. By the way, this'll probably be switching back and forth every chapter. 

Enjoy!

**Darkest Dragon: **Dude! You've read those books!? AWESOME! I 3 you now! *dies* anywho, yeah, thanks for your review! I had the Cimorene books read to me when I was, like, SIX years old, so. . . Wow, That was only Seven years ago. *capitalizes Seven for no reason what-so-ever* Thanks for adding the story to your favorites! I hope the rest of the chapters don't disappoint you!

**Terena: **Ahh, your review made me happy. Mostly because it was the second review out of an entire _two_ I got. *proceeds to be bitter about only getting two reviews* We must 3 teh Kiki.

Anywho, thanks both of you! 

PS: This is practically another prologue. . .

________________

**Byakko Cafe'**

_"Chapter One : ::: : . . . Fast Learner"_

Everything was black. Very, very black. That was, of course, if some black had the ability to be more black than other blacks. So, authoress's sanity disabilities aside, the point being made was, that the entire world was black for Max Mizuhara. 

It slowly faded into a dull grey, then a brown blob. Max sat up slowly, holding his suddenly throbbing head. As he sat up, the blob seemed to back up a little bit. By the time Max was in sitting positions and had looked up, the blob had reformed itself into a boy, quite a few years younger than himself.

"You're awake." The ex-blob observed, adjusting his blue-rimmed glasses. "I'm surprised, didn't think it'd take that little time." He rummaged around his clothes and produced a small bottle, offering it to the blonde with a "Drink this."

Max accepted it, nodding slowly and feeling almost surprised that he could move his hand; his body felt numb. He drank it slowly, savoring the horrible taste despite the urge to either spit it out or finish quickly. Having just woken up, his brain wasn't quite functioning, but once he finished drinking he was immediately berated with a mental what was that? Why'd you drink that? What if it was _poison?_

"It was a healing potion." The younger boy said, answering his mental interrogations - despite that Max had been asking himself and only mentally. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about the taste."

Max waved a dismissive hand, his body no longer numb but his head still throbbing. But it was. . . Going away? 

"It doesn't heal you, sorry, but it _does_ get rid of injury pain." he took off his glasses in an almost nervous reflex and frowned, cleaning them with his shirt cloth. "I'm not good enough with potions to do much more right now." He put his now--nearly-sparkling glasses back on. "I can do a few minor healing spells too, but you've got that magic barrier up, so I didn't even try."

"Magic barrier?"

"Yeah."

"Oh!" Max clapped his hands together in realization. "Genbu put it up for me."

"Defensive, of course. That's how Genbu works, defense."

"My mom," Max started after a pause, beginning to like the younger boy, "She works with potions, and she once told me that even that potion to make the pain stop is difficult to learn, and that most who work with potions can't use any magic."

The boy blushed. "I learn quick, I guess." He avoided the compliment by switching subjects. "I'm Kyouju."

"Max."

There was a short moment of silence as they shared a smile. 

"Why were you captured? Why was _I_ captured?" Max asked after a while, deciding that since the younger boy was so calm that was giving _him_ the right to whine like a child.

Kyouju bit his lip. "You have Genbu, correct?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah."

"Thought so. My friend back home has Seiryuu, I'm guessing they brought me here to get him to come to them. He's good at detecting attacks and such you know, so it'd be easier for them to capture him if he came to them. Actually, I believe that. . ." Kyouju trailed off and looked at Max after realizing that he'd been rambling a bit and that he'd stopped looking at said blonde. 

Muchly surprising him was the fact that Max was _still_ staring at him, as though every word he spoke was of the utmost importance.

"You were captured by the teamwork of two boys, correct?" Kyouju asked, blushing again. Usually people got tired of listening to him after two sentences.

"Seemed to me like one of them was a girl." Max said, putting a finger to his chin. "Purple hair, shoulder-length. Green eyes. And the boy had a red bandana and dark brown hair."

"Ahh, thought so. Suzuka and Hiruta." A pause. "They're both boys, you know." Max choked for a moment before - quite suddenly, really - regaining his composure. "Anyway, they captured me too. They work for the holder of Suzaku. I think. . . If I'm right, there's no need to be scared; they _can't_ harm us."

Max pointed to his head, which was still bleeding a small amount. Kyouju winced.

"They can't _kill_ us. Well, you. I myself, well, I don't have a holy beast, so they're free to kill me." Kyouju laughed and for a moment looked like he was about to cry, reminding Max again that he was probably at _least _three years younger than him self.. "But it's not like I'm important." 

Max blinked a few times as Kyouju immediately shook his head. 

"Takao would get angry if he heard me say that." Kyouju declared, more to himself than to Max. "Do you know why the four spirits were given to humans?" Kyouju asked, switching topics yet again. Max shook his head. "Because they couldn't coexist with them."

"Eh? But that doesn't make sense."

"More like they couldn't exist next to the humans, so they decided that if they each chose _one _human that they thought trust worthy then it would solve things. It's a story I don't feel like expanding on. If you ever feel the need to learn the whole thing, here." _**Thump! **_Kyouju produced an amazingly huge book and let it drop to the ground loudly. "It's just a few light details on the legends."

"Light, eh? How can you consider this light reading?" Kyouju pouted childishly. "More importantly, where were you keeping this?"

And indeed, the book was much to large for him to have had in his pockets, or any other place for that matter. Kyouju, however, decided it best - by will of the authoress - that it was a secret.

"It was a plot-hole." Kyouju said, shrugging. _*poke*_ Kyouju sighed. "Excuse me, it's a _secret._" Max nodded veeerrrry slowly before picking up the book. 

"I suppose I 'ought to read this." 

"It'd help."

__________________

GAH!!!!!!!!! I had to, okay, here! *calms down*

I wrote a pretty spiffy chapter, but admittedly this one's better. Anywho, I wrote it and every time I uploaded it on document manager it showed all the codes! GAH!

So I tried copying it into a different program, retyping it in the same program, and copying into a new document of the same program, but it wouldn't work!!! (It wasn't just me or the server, 'cause all the other things I could upload were fine.)

So, after a while I went "Meh, whatever, this chapter sucks anyway." and wrote a new one. Halfway through a chapter I spent, like, weeks working on, I go "Hey! Dude! This SUCKS! And started this."

Luckily, this one practically wrote itself. 

Anyone seeing the parallels between this and the actual series yet? 

I'll point them out.  


Kyouju was kidnapped by Hiruta and Suzuka.

Hiruta and Suzuka work for Kai.

Kyouju is there to lure Takao in.

Kai wants to talk to Takao.

Get it yet? What's funny is I barely even recognized this at first.

I was like "Huh, I think Hiruta and Suzuka are just plain _awesome_ so I shall put them in. And I shall make them work for Kai. And I shall make them kidnap Kyouju to lure in Taka- waaaaaaaaiiiit a second. . . *realization hits* " 

Yeah. Anywho, this was written while listening to HeartPlace by Ayumi Hamasaki on repeat! Woo! Go Ayumi! *3s Ayumi's work*  
  
  
**Please review and all that crap! XD**


	3. Chapter Two: Dark Dreamer

Doot doot. Good day at school. If anyone cares, I have an online journal.

Livejounal. com/ ~chibichaossama

Yeah. ^^

Oh, and umm, MAJOR NOTE HERE: The plot will start in teh next chapter. Okay, so, as you should have figured out, this story will take place in TWO places. More like, it will focus on TWO groups. So, the original plan was to go off-and-on throughout chapters, y'know? But It's gonna be kind of random. . . Hope no one especially minds. 

You 'ought to be able to tell just where/who it's focusing on by the first paragraph though.

**Sailor of Tears: **Sankyuu for ze review! *proceeds to be bitter about only getting four reviews... In all.* 

**Bonnie aka The asakura gang : **O_____O I'm sorry, but I DIDN'T understand your review at all. "I can't believe I had written my first flamer"? Is that saying that prior to reviewing my fanfic you wrote a flame, or that you're flaming my fanfic? "Its ok nothing interesting but not UPDATING!!"? Uhmm, that'd probably be because the plot starts in, like, _the next_ chapter. Anyway, even if it was confusing as hell, I appreciate your review/flame/whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. BUT HA! I UPDATE! HAHAHAHAHA! 

.....

.........

*spontanious combustion*  


________________

**Byakko Cafe'**

_"Chapter Two : ::: : . . . Dark Dreamer"_

"Rei!" Violet eyes snapped open. Kiki's breathing slowed from it's fast pace after a moment and he let out a heavy sigh before reaching over to his side-table alarm clock.

7:32 AM

"That weird dream again." Kiki muttered, recalling the dream. He'd been getting it often and it was very strange. [1] It usually started out in the middle of some fight - between some black haired boy, a purple haired. . . Person, and Rei. By 'person,' of course, Kiki meant that gender was difficult to determine.

He was always watching. Mao and himself, simply watching as Rei fought off the two. Sometimes Shuilan was there too. She seemed to just be watching or not there at all. The very end. . . He'd never gotten that far. That, or the end _was_ Rei being held - unconscious - in the arms of some boy with wings of fire, before the boy left. And then the other. . . People. . . simply gave a glare before leaving in the same direction.

The clock numbers blinked to 7:33 AM. 

Kiki stared through bleary eyes, a full two minutes until it clicked to 7:35 AM, and there was a loud call of:

"Kiki! Are you up yet?" From Mao, downstairs. The world seemed to suddenly come into focus - sounds included. The radio was on, playing some song or another, and he could hear Mao cooking. And Mao's voice as she happily chattered away with. . . Whoever was there. He couldn't hear any specific _words_, just sounds. 

_Wait, three voices?_ Kiki thought, stumbling his way to his dresser as gracefully as someone who woke up three minutes ago could be. If anything, it should only be two. He shrugged and, after getting dressed, headed down stairs. 

To be met with Shuilan eating pancakes enthusiastically and Mao flipping some in the air quite skillfully while also talking to- 

Kiki's mouth opened and closed as gaped long while at who he saw, with no one noticing his presence. Eventually, Shuilan turned and burst out laughing, with a delighted:

"Kiki's a goldfish!"

Mao turned to look at Shuilan curiously - it was a rather odd thing to say - before noticing Kiki. "Oh good, you're up. Morning." She greeted, then went back to talking to - and this was the person who's presence surprised Kiki - her older brother. Rai.

"You!" Kiki exclaimed after a moment, pointing an accusing finger. Rai smirked, that only-looks-good-on-me-so-don't-even-try arrogant smirk.

"Yeah, me." There was a moment in which both Shuilan and Mao were frightened, but it passed when Kiki shrugged and sat down at the table next to Shuilan. Rai raised an eyebrow. "That was a wonderful response."

Kiki nodded and gave a quiet thanks to Mao as she set a plate of pancakes in front of him. "You see, I'm only half awake, because I've only just woken up. It'll be shocking later, once I've woken up, but it's possible that such events won't even happen, due to the fact that it's sinking in already - via, my subconscious mind." There was silence as Kiki nodded wisely, before Rai broke the silence.

The silence of course, broke down crying due to that fact that it had been broken, but since no one really cared about the poor, lonely silence, he simply ran away, still crying.

As said, no one cared, including Rai who - as also said - broke it.

"Wow, big words." 

Repeat after me, readers: Yay for sarcasm!

Kiki merely shrugged, then gave Shuilan a glance. Then a good morning. Then a "Do your parents feed you at _your_ house?" And then a wry look.

Confused look: "Yes. Today I had three omelets for breakfast, so, it's a kind of duh-thing."

". . . Three omelets, and now you're eating pancakes."

"Wonderful observation. I'm young, I must eat lots and become big and all-mighty." Shuilan jumped off her chair, being done with her pancakes anyway, and struck a pose, much like the ones seen in badly stereo-typed and badly-made, not-so-original anime series.

"You're only a year younger than me." Kiki pointed out, receiving only a shrug and a 'That's nice. . ." before Shuilan picked her plate off the table and handed it to Mao. 

"Thanks for breakfast." 

"You're-"

"It's not breakfast if you already had one meal!"

"-Welcome."

Shuilan blew raspberries at Kiki before skipping out the door, the ribbons in her side-strands trailing behind her. Of course, Kiki had barely noticed them until now, but, at this point it was rather obvious that they were, in fact, existent.

Moving on. . . 

"So, how long are you staying for?" Kiki asked, beginning to eat his pancakes. Rai shrugged and Mao chuckled.

"Since big brother is a moron, probably forever. But he doesn't want to admit it." She poked his cheek, then quickly went back to looking at the sink, whistling as she started cleaning the dishes, half because whistling makes anything seem more enjoyable, and half because whistling is a I-did-it-but-I'm-acting-like-I-didn't noise.

After some light chatter and a few small arguments - though they seemed heated when _all_ three of the neko-jin got involved, they were all ready to leave. First order of business: Inform Rei that Rai was back. 

As Kiki took a step towards the door, he thought he heard heavy and fast footsteps, but ignored it and continued walking. He jumped back as the door slammed open, revealing Rei, who was panting heavily and looking about, eyes wide. Shuilan was standing behind him, almost like she was afraid, even though she wasn't.

Rei's eyes finally settled on Rai, and in a second he had pounced. Mao jumped away from Rai as said Rai was tackled to the ground. 

"Funny," Mao said, putting a hand over her mouth, "We were just about to go get you." But she made no move to her original spot that was _near_ the currently being-nuzzled Rai.

Shuilan seemed to be hiding from the inside of the house, and poked her head through the door for a moment, just to say "I went and got him."

"So I gathered." Mao said, then coughed politely. "Rei, if you would mind detaching yourself from my brother." 

Rei sighed dejectedly before standing. He followed her instructions and glanced up at the clock. "We should show Rai around." He decided, puffing out his chest as he made his decision.

". . . I've only been gone four a year." Rai pointed out.

"A lot has changed." Shuilan said, still avoiding entering the house for no real reason.

Kiki gave her a look. "Nothing has changed."

"Quiet, you," She scowled. "I'm trying to trick him into buying me a present from one of the new shops." A moment of silence. "Darn, this is my outside voice, isn't it?"

In the end they did go shopping, and yes, Rai _did_ buy Shuilan a present. Then they went home, Rei to his house, Shuilan to her's, Mao, Rai, and Kiki to theirs, and they went to their rooms, and they slept. Woot. T'is so amazing, no?

But things were much more eventful the next day. Kiki half-wished that he had woken up _that_ time as well.

__________________  
  
[1] Y'know, it didn't occur to me until reading this over before publishing teh chapter that up until this part, it sounds like he had a wet dream about Rei. XD *ecchi minded*

  
**Please review!**


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